September 14 letters

To Mom:

This week has been pretty good. My new companion is super cool and I really enjoy training out here. All of the programs exist but I've never heard any person (leader or youth) talk about or do anything with faith in god, duty to god, personal progress etc. They struggle with going to church let alone doing these extra programs. I'm going to start trying to implement some new things though. This week we organized the young women's class presidencies which is the first time I've ever seen that in Mozambique and next week we'll get the deacons teachers and priests. Also this week the branch president took some initiative to try and get mutual going in some form with the young men and women presidents so we'll see how that goes. We are really working hard to make as many changes and put as many things in order as possible. They never do mutual or have anything like scouts or activity days. Many of the kids come to church by themselves. One day the church will grow and have good programs and such but right now the leadership just has no chance of handling any of that.

This week we got a ton of work done. We should be opening a process of marriage tomorrow which will be pretty good. We are planning a big marriage baptism on the 3rd of October. Everything is basically set. Also, my wallet got stolen on Friday so could you please go and cancel my card. Anyway, the preparations are going well. Elder Brown and I are getting along great and things are pretty chill between us. I am definitely enjoying my time with him. 

To Dad:

Being a trainer is fun but hard to be sure.  The language is the hardest part because he doesn't speak or understand much so that puts a lot of the load on my shoulders. It's all good though because he is learning surprisingly quickly and I'm sure that in no time he'll be up to full productivity. I'm not in the branch presidency yet because one of the mission presidency has to do that and none of them have come here or probably will any time soon. I doubt that I'll be officially in the branch presidency at least for a little while. In the meantime, I am really trying to help the current branch presidency magnify their callings and get the branch up and running properly. This week we organized the young womens class presidencies and next week we hope to organize the young men's as well. They don't really have too many meetings seeming that many of the leaders battle with just going to church regularly but the ones that we have my companion is welcome to sit in on. My companion is Elder Brown from Riverton Utah.